Wikipedia:Media Viewer/June 2014 RfC

I see that a number of editors have expressed opinions, especially here on MediaWiki, and I think it would be beneficial for the English Wikipedia community to have a consensus about this issue. --Pine^✉ 08:09, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Should Media Viewer be enabled or disabled by default for logged-in users, and if disabled, under what conditions should it be re-enabled?

Enabled

1.    FDMS  4    18:57, 8 June 2014 (UTC): If we remove or significantly change features for users after they register and login, this would cause a lot of confusion. So there is no need for two questions.
2. I like the media viewer. It lets me focus on the image, and looks professional, as opposed to the messy backend and numerous copyright and other notices that appear when I view the image page. --LT910001 (talk) 22:23, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

   The display of copyright notices is a legal obligation on our behalf. I don't like wearing clothes (being naked is so much more comfortable), however I have the obligation (and society's expectation) that I do not wander around public places in the nude. Just because it's undesirable doesn't mean it shouldn't be done. --benlisquare_T•C•E 12:16, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

3. Strong enable I was very pleasantly surprised when the new Media Viewer started popping up in my browser. Bringing up the image full-screen allows users to see in in greater detail without having to find the links to higher-resolution thumbnails on the image page, and the information is presented in a compact, simplified manner. I'd like to point out that Ctrl+clicking an image thumbnail immediately brings up the image page in a new tab, a trick I've made great use of. Of course, there are improvements that can be made, but tool is a very positive development in the presentation of Wikipedia's content. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 00:04, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

   No one had to "find the links" to see an image in its highest resolution before. All we had to do is click on an image a second time if it was a very hi-res image. This at least is the way most browsers handled it, including Firefox and IE. With Firefox, all one had to do is click on the image a second time to see the image with a black background, without all the other 'messy' info that is apparently causing 'problems' for some viewers. With the Media viewer to see an image in its highest res a non logged in user now has to click on a link to commons, and click again, to see it in full res -- that is, if they know they have to go to Commons to see the image in its highest res in the first place. Most viewers don't, and will be missing out on all the beautiful and/or informative detail many quality hi-res images have to offer. What browser are you using? -- Gwillhickers (talk) 04:47, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

   That's a very easy fix, then: just put a link to the high-res version in Media Viewer. It's certainly not an issue to disable the whole thing over. And I almost never look at the high-res versions, and anyway you're always limited to screen resolution, which is what Media Viewer shows, but the Commons page initially does not. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 16:14, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

4. The media viewer is a strong start. Is it complete? No. But it's good enough to launch. Powers ^T 01:19, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Disabled

1. Disable Most logged in users are experienced editors to one degree or another, most of whom find this viewer something of a fifth wheel. A flat tire no less. Any thing this new viewer can do (which isn't much) the previous viewing system did much better, including ability to show images in their max resolution, editing file summaries, adding/deleting and access to categories, etc. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 04:10, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
2. Disable, if I were a typical reader I guess it would be useful for me, however as an editor it gets in my way most of the time. 9 times out of 10, when I click on an image, I don't want to actually look at it like a typical reader, but instead want to do something with it (e.g. check for licensing, tag for deletion, etc). --benlisquare_T•C•E 06:18, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
3. Disabled - I appreciate that a lot of effort has gone into the viewer but sometimes developers seem to be distant from the core projects. I don't think it is particularly useful that the tickbox for enabling/disabling the viewer is in the Appearance tab of Preferences rather than the Gadgets tab, because essentially this is just a gadget. Like Benlisquare says above, I don't want to just look at pretty picture and say "Gee-whiz, wudya look at that!"; rather I want to look at the background information which is just not visible in the new viewer. This is just the latest in a line of gaffes, following in the hallowed traditions of Visual Editor, with the aim of forcing us down Talking-Paper-Clip Avenue! Green Giant (talk) 13:10, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
4. Disabled - I see no benefits for editors: it complicates the workflow and hides informations. It should be, at least, on opt-in basis. A "Media Viewer" link below the image should be enough. -- Basilicofresco (msg) 13:56, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
5. Disabled. For non-logged in users, I'm neutral (see below), but I agree that the Media Viewer has no benefits for editors whatsoever. With Media Viewer enabled, working with images is more cumbersome and everything takes longer. Gestumblindi (talk) 15:20, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
6. Disabled. Allow opt-in, I suppose, but I cannot imagine a scenario in which an experienced user would prefer this. - Jmabel | Talk 16:28, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
7. Disabled – Extremely hard to work on articles with this thing around, per Green Giant and Benlisquare. RGloucester — ☎ 21:33, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
8. Disabled and retooled - If this were some sort of add-on to the regular file pages, allowing navigation between images found in an article, it would be a welcome addition. But right now, it completely mucks up attribution, hides critical information, and makes it impossible for productive editors to work. VanIsaac_WS^cont 22:03, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
9. Disabled – Please disable Media Viewer and rethink it if you must. It is an irritating intermediate stage which I bypass as quickly as I can. If you think you are solving some problem or other, please find a better solution. LynwoodF (talk) 20:53, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
10. Disabled - -jkb- (talk) 14:33, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
11. Disabled Horrible interface from a usability POV because it completely breaks the look and feel as well as workflows. Congratulations to the people responsible for this. It's perfectly in line with your former success stories AFT and VisualEditor. --Millbart (talk) 18:57, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
12. Disabled I have made a lengthy post about the disaster of this project discussion page. Media is not what an open, educational platform needs. - Evan-Amos (talk) 22:53, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
13. Disabled Large maps and panoramas become unviewable. Charts and maps that are color-coded and change/are edited over time and have a legend/key in multiple languages simply do not work with this interface. I want to see the history on how an image has changed. For example, a map of depicting the status of Legality of cannabis by country or Same-sex marriage in the United States, two very current issues: it's of interest to view that dynamic and see how the maps/images evolve. This Media Viewer was rolled out way too early, without enough testing, with too many bugs, and included too drastic of a change! How about implementing Media Viewer step-by-step, so that users get accustomed to it gradually; and the developers can get a sense of what features people find useful, and what has to go? MarkGT (talk) 01:35, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
14. Disabled ack Millbart and all others. --Nolispanmo 13:33, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
15. Disabled - It is not useful and extremly annoying for those working with images -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 19:05, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
16. Disabled - There is no obvious way to get to the image page from the lightbox, there is no obvious way to disable it (there is a small preferences link that can be unhidden, but clicking it dumps users to a general preferences page where they must find the little checkbox labled "Media Viewer"), it is confusing as it initially presents a blurry image before downloading a higher resolution one, and it makes browsing difficult on touch-screen devices that use pinch-to-zoom, many of the buttons contain cryptic icons, and their function can only be revealed by hovering over them assuming your device has a mouse. It becomes almost unusably slow on older slower machines or machines on a slow connection. It doesn't allow zooming and scrolling within the image. This feature, like Hovercards, can be useful to some users but has side effects so severe that it should ALWAYS be opt-in for everyone. The fact that less than 30% of enwiki users find it useful speaks volumes. --Ahecht (TALK
    PAGE) 23:11, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
17. Disabled and globally disabled in all wikis. It complicates the workflow and hides information. There isn't any need for such thing. Ahsoous (talk) 20:14, 11 June 2014 (UTC)
18. Disabled--Aschmidt (talk) 00:29, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
19. Disabled - I absolutely abhor this feature as it makes editing and using images incredibly complicated. The viewer presents no obvious link to the file page, access to "Talk" pages on images seems to be lacking in some instances, and is just a "T" hidden in the material below images. My favorite travesty of Media Viewer so far has been the map for same-sex marriage in the United States (Samesex marriage in USA.svg). Where once there were nearly ordered keys below the image first in English, then in other languages alphabetically, Media Viewer gives this ugly soup of colored boxes and descriptions without separation between languages, smashing Korean into Dutch and Russian into Simplified Chinese. To say that this is a feature that does nothing for me is to be too kind to it - it is a detriment in every conceivable way. Please just can this "improvement." - S201676 (talk) 07:53, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
20. Disabled. When editing, images are usually added to supplement the text. Therefore, covering up the text and making it unviewable is incredibly counterproductive and defeats the whole purpose of adding images in the first place. In fact, I would have to say that this viewer does nothing good. If an image is too small to see without this, then the image should be scaled up in the article itself. StringTheory11 (t • c) 03:29, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
21. Disabled The 'Media Viewer' is an obstruction at best, and a major irritant at worst. If you insist on implementing this useless bloat 'feature', you should at least make it an Opt-In ONLY, *NOT* Opt-Out. I am still trying to figure out how to turn this garbage OFF, and frankly it's making me really angry that there are no clear instructions *anywhere* for doing so. GET RID OF IT! FireHorse (talk) 07:40, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
22. Disabled When I click on an image, I want to alter its categories or copyright tag more than I want to look at the image itself. Logged in in users don't need this feature. Rcsprinter₁₂₃ (speak) @ 21:49, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
23. Disabled Media Viewer is a delightful innovation for the casual reader who has no interest in charts and maps, but a barrier for working editors sourcing for article review, or updating categories for the images themselves. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 11:15, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
24. Disable Since when did Wikipedia want to become a Facebook/Flickr wannabe? The JavaScript is so poorly coded that a brand new Mac can't even handle it using Chrome, FireFox and Safari, causing all three browsers to freeze and become unresponsive, that requires a force quit. Bidgee (talk) 01:43, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
25. Disable This is a serious roadblock when the file description at Commons needs to be accessed. This is the Wikipedia anyone should be able to edit. Thanks to the MediaViewer the original description gets hidden and it gets even harder to edit it. And not everyone is prepared to view images in such a huge resolution as not everyone has a high bandwidth. This is not Flickr but Wikipedia. --AFBorchert (talk) 21:38, 19 June 2014 (UTC)
26. Disabled for current users and enabled for newly registered users I agree with the point that consistency is key. IP Users have it on, when they register they keep it on, but anyone who currently has an account keeps it off until they turn it on. Zell Faze (talk) 12:40, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
27. Disable. Extraordinarily unhelpful in every respect. RomanSpa (talk) 15:55, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
28. Disable. Perhaps enable if a user explicitly turns it on. Leebert (talk) 01:45, 22 June 2014 (UTC)
29. Disable. I can't think of anyone who really needs to see an image, its name (without any hint that it is a file name) and some copyright information at the same time (all that - and nothing more). The user interface is counterintuitive (to say the least) - it took far too much time to find out how to turn this thing off and the behaviour of the buttons is almost impossible to guess without tooltips. I'd say that normal image description pages do everything that is actually needed better. By the way, what, for example, DeviantArt is using is equivalent to those same image description pages... --Martynas Patasius (talk) 21:52, 22 June 2014 (UTC)
30. Disable - I was very surprised to see this pop up in my browser, The previous layout was much much more easier to use and alot more helpful to everyone, Anyway In short this new feature is as about as helpful as a chocolate teapot! .... Bit like VE & Flow really but that's for another day lol, –Davey2010 • (talk) 00:23, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
31. Disable, and defund whoever created this abomination. I was deleting orphaned fair use images yesterday and today and found this incredibly annoying. It does not give me an edit or delete button, and it does not tell me where the image is in use; as such it is completely useless. Also, what part of "no" does the foundation not understand? MER-C 15:37, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
32. Disabled - it reduces functionality, particularly when one is editing. The way it loads the image is eyestrain-inducing. The only argument in its favor is personal esthetic preference, so it should be an option to be enabled by those who prefer that format. Yngvadottir (talk) 15:40, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
33. Disable absolutely. I have been wondering what was wrong. When I click on an image, I want to get straight to the Commons image page, not to a Flikr type page. The priority is the encyclopedic information in context, from where the options are available to me, not chosen for me in advance with the absurd assumption that the pretty picture is my priority. We are not Flickr, we are an encyclopaedia. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 15:56, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
34. Disable - Media Viewer just gets in the way of any attempt to view metadata or edit categories etc., as others have said. I don't see what was wrong going to the standard page to see the image, if indeed you need an enlarged version in an encyclopaedia. This is yet another example of the Foundation trying to facebook-ise Wikipedia. BethNaught (talk) 16:10, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
35. Disable - Sometimes this feature gives the full terms of the image license. Sometimes it doesn't. I'm tired of having to look for the full information page, but I'm willing to tolerate an opt-in option. Altamel (talk) 01:32, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
36. Disable by defauld for logged-in users. These people primarily want to edit rather than consume content.  Sandstein  10:46, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
37. Disable If the only goal was to make WP look more like facebook, congratulations, mission accomplished. If the goal was to give users an improved expereience when viewing images, sorry, but I can't imagine how this could possibly be considered an improvement. Not everything facebook does is better than the way we were already doing it. It is discouraging to see that the foundation still doesn't seem to grasp that. Beeblebrox (talk) 01:43, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
38. Disable of course. This is a horribly inadequate software feature, which reflects a distressingly poor understanding of what various stakeholders require. I outlined my concerns here, several months before the feature was enabled: mediawikiwiki:Talk:Multimedia/About_Media_Viewer/Archive01#Towards_enabling_the_Media_Viewer_by_default -Pete (talk) 18:29, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Neutral

1. Consistency is key. The default setting for logged-in users should be the same as for unregistered users, so that new users have fewer surprises to deal with. That being said, logged-in users should be able to easily opt out if it's enabled by default. {{Nihiltres|talk|edits}} 19:46, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

Discuss and comment

• This discussion needs more attention; I know is more than one person who would prefer it in its previous state. The only users likely to be looking through Wikipedia and come upon this discussion are those who dislike the interface or watch the village pump (which does not include many people). As a result, (even if the preference would still be against Media Viewer) there will be a heavy bias against it. Try to draw attention to this discussion in a more spectacular way than just leaving a link on the village pump. Also, I notice that some users are not giving any actual reasons for their opinions. The most extreme example is with jkb, who has given no reason. And to Millbart, I don't care how much you dislike this, this tool was created by real people, and just because you dislike it doesn't mean you should hate on it. Dustin (talk) 19:38, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

I don't put hate on anyone, what makes you say that? OK, I probably should have tagged my congratulations as sarcasm. Being a long time editor I am somewhat frustrated with the never changing approach of the WMF and their project managers. For some weird reason these "real people" tend to make the same mistakes over and over again and, more importantly, the justifications for initially keeping the stuff that they force on the community, before eventually succumbing to community pressure, are always the same: An ominous usability study or survey, that interestingly enough, few long time editors or power users, the other "real people" btw., who actually create the content and structure of this phantastic project, have never seen, yet alone taken part in, is cited as the reason for keeping it around. For some strange reason, the new stuff is almost always exactly what people want and what will eventually attract new editors to the project. Yet, it almost always gets in the way of doing real work. To developers and project managers without any real editorial experience in any of the projects, this Web-2.0-Ajaxy-Yet-Another-Overlay-stuff may look really sexy. It isn't. So please forgive me that I don't shower anyone with "love". --Millbart (talk) 20:56, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

I guess a better approach would be explaining how one is supposed to say that one thinks WMF is doing a very bad job... --Martynas Patasius (talk) 21:32, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

• The rollout is too abrupt, a) without notice how to disable broadcast to editors, b) without a toggle button to link to the file at Wikimedia Commons. — Without such a toggle button, we are required to go through this either-or RfC, when I would be happy to use Media Viewer as a casual user myself, but certainly would prefer a ready revert to direct file access as an editor. If it must be either or, I’m for disabling for editors, because most of my time at WP is as an editor. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 11:09, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

---

Should Media Viewer be enabled or disabled by default for non-logged-in users, and if disabled, under what conditions should it be re-enabled?

Enabled

1.    FDMS  4    18:57, 8 June 2014 (UTC): Although I'm mainly a Commons contributor myself, I a) don't think users who want to get an expanded/fullscreen view of an image should have to go there and b) find the ability to get article image slideshows great. Users should be able to get to the Commons file description page (not the Wikipedia copy) directly via the thumb symbols.
2. For the most part, when a user wants a larger version of an image, they want a larger version, rather than the largest possible version, and the media viewer works reasonably well for that. --Carnildo (talk) 01:43, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
3. Enabled I think media viewer is a lot more professional-looking than the previous system. I am not sure how users reacted when taken to the backend, with the copyright explanation, file history and so forth, but as a registered and unregistered user I found being taken there particularly jarring, ugly, and initially confusing. Also, yes I sometimes want to know metadata, but probably 95% of the time I just want to view the image. There does seem to be some opposition, but I hope that the addition of features can tone this down a bit. --LT910001 (talk) 22:29, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
4. Enabled The simplified presentation is helpful for non-registered users, who can still access the full version of the image page by clicking through the link. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 00:04, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
5. Enabled Most unregistered users are readers wanting to view the image closer up rather than see its cluttered information page. Why not let them see this fantastically designed interface that wouldn't be annoying for them? (But would for me.) Rcsprinter₁₂₃ (tell me stuff) @ 21:51, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

   "Most unregistered users" - How do you know? Did you conduct a survey of 50,000 unregistered users with a CI of 0.95 and a p-value of less than 0.01? Why should you speak on behalf of most unregistered users? Do you have firm backing, or is this simply an assumption? --benlisquare_T•C•E 12:11, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

6. Enabled Consistency is key. IP Users have it on, when they register they keep it on, but anyone who currently has an account keeps it off until they turn it on. Zell Faze (talk) 12:41, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
7. Enable it. I don't understand many of the points being made by those who oppose. For example, anonymous users do not generally work in file space (most anonymous edits there are tests or vandalism). — This, that and the other (talk) 12:14, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Disabled

1. Disabled, 10 reasons given below. -- 79.253.58.136 (talk) 20:57, 7 June 2014 (UTC)
2. Disable, there are simply too may things wrong with this viewer. It's little more than a slide show feature which doesn't allow the viewer to see an image in its max resolution. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 04:10, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
3. Disabled, I agree with all of 79.253.58.136's comments. The only thing I would like to add is that this feature might be useful for mobile users. I don't have enough experience using mobile Wikipedia to give much of an opinion there. Some sort of RfC specifically with regards to mobile users would be good to have. Crazycasta (talk) 08:05, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
4. Disabled - I think 79.253.58.136 pretty much sums it up. Beta developers seem to have different priorities to the rest of us. The recent category moving farce is an example of developers not really thinking things through. There are so many other things that need doing like the migration from toolserver and yet we are wasting resources on this, Visual Editor and Hovercards (glorified popups). Green Giant (talk) 13:10, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
5. Disabled - I agree with several remarks reported by 79.253.58.136, nevertheless I understand that it could be nice for some kind of users/uses (mobile phones?). For this reason in my opinion a button "Launch Media Viewer on this image" on the image page sounds as a simple and effective solution both for logged-in and non-logged-in users. -- Basilicofresco (msg) 14:20, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
6. Disabled - Might shift to neutral if it were easy to see how to credit for reuse. But it seems to me we could solve that just as easily on the regular file page. - Jmabel | Talk 16:30, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
7. Disabled and retooled - If this were some sort of add-on to the regular file pages, allowing navigation between images found in an article, it would be a welcome addition. But right now, it completely mucks up attribution, hides critical information, and makes it impossible for productive editors to work. VanIsaac_WS^cont 22:03, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
8. Disabled - -jkb- (talk) 14:33, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
9. Disabled This thing shouldn't be forced on anyone. --Millbart (talk) 18:57, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
10. Disabled People use Wikipedia as a source of information. The barrier of being a logged-in user shouldn't prevent these people from accessing important metadata. - Evan-Amos (talk) 22:53, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
11. Disabled This is an absolutely horrendous feature. I often use Wikipedia to look at maps; e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bukovina#mediaviewer/File:Bucov.png. Maps do not, in general, fit within the screen; to see them properly, you need to expand them to their native resolution. In the old system, doing this involved three clicks: one on the thumbnail in the article, one on the very easy to click on mid-res image, and finally one to zoom in. This was easy, and great. Now, getting the same requires clicking on the thumbnail, scrolling down (this isn't an obvious step), clicking on a *very not obvious* link, and then clicking on the mid-res image and zooming in. This is horrid. It's also extremely non-intuitive. My first instict was to try to click on the image in the media viewer. That did nothing. Then it was to right click -> view image; this produced a low-res (and hence unusable, in this case) image. Finding the solution required a lot of fiddling around, which I as a casual reader of Wikipedia expect not to have to do. --129.67.108.52 (talk) 08:25, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
12. Disabled - It is not useful and extremly annoying for those working with images -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 19:05, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
13. Disabled and removed. Disabled for the multiple reasons that 79.253.58.136 has so helpfully summarised which reflect the lack of proper research, design, and user testing and feedback (as can most notably be seen in that sorry survey asking, when someone tries to view an image, if an image viewer is useful). Removed because of the ongoing development and maintenance costs that this or any other tool has (remember this is funded by public contributions, it's not like the guys who wrote it are paying for it out of their own pockets. On the contrary, they're getting paid). We all fuck up sometimes. That's a good thing, as long as we admit to it before it's too late, learn from it, and subsequently spread that knowledge so others don't fall into the same traps. This "lessons learned" value is perhaps the only thing we can salvage from this feature.
    1. I have to agree with this assessment. It's waste like this that dissuades me from donating to wikipedia recently.Crazycasta (talk) 22:19, 11 June 2014 (UTC)
14. Disabled - There is no obvious way to get to the image page from the lightbox, there is no obvious way to disable it (there is a small preferences link that can be unhidden, but clicking it dumps users to a general preferences page where they must find the little checkbox labled "Media Viewer"), it is confusing as it initially presents a blurry image before downloading a higher resolution one, and it makes browsing difficult on touch-screen devices that use pinch-to-zoom, many of the buttons contain cryptic icons, and their function can only be revealed by hovering over them assuming your device has a mouse. It becomes almost unusably slow on older slower machines or machines on a slow connection. It doesn't allow zooming and scrolling within the image. This feature, like Hovercards, can be useful to some users but has side effects so severe that it should ALWAYS be opt-in for everyone. Have a "view as slideshow" button to make this feature available to those that want it. The fact that less than 30% of enwiki users find it useful speaks volumes. --Ahecht (TALK
    PAGE) 23:11, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
15. Disabled--Aschmidt (talk) 00:30, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
16. Disabled everyhere Ahsoous (talk)
17. Disabled - Disabled everywhere. Can the entire project. Please see my comments to question 1 above for more details. - S201676 (talk) 07:53, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
18. Disabled; from a reader's point of view, this media viewer does two things, both bad: omits captions and completely covers all the text. While the first may (and 100% should) get fixed in a later update, there is simply no way to fix the second problem, which is so severe of a problem that I don't think this should ever be a default. Let me also say that by taking up the whole page, it is hard to figure out exactly how to close the image; the first time I accidentally clicked on one, I had to reload the page. StringTheory11 (t • c) 03:29, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
19. Disabled as it would be even more challenging for newbies to access the file descriptions including the detailed info how the file can be reused. --AFBorchert (talk) 21:41, 19 June 2014 (UTC)
20. Disabled. Has caused tremendous problems to a user well-known to me who prefers not to register as an editor. RomanSpa (talk) 15:57, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
21. Disabled. Among the various very good reasons already enumerated, some of us delete cookies after a browser session. Leebert (talk) 01:47, 22 June 2014 (UTC)
22. Disabled. There are other reasons I have mentioned in the answer to the other poll question, but here it is also important not to hide anything about the functioning of Wikipedia from potential contributors. Hiding the image description page does just that. --Martynas Patasius (talk) 21:59, 22 June 2014 (UTC)
23. Disabled - I was very surprised to see this pop up in my browser, The previous layout was much much more easier to use and alot more helpful to everyone, Anyway In short this new feature is as about as helpful as a chocolate teapot! .... Bit like VE & Flow really but that's for another day lol, –Davey2010 • (talk) 00:25, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
24. Disabled. Dunno if a lowly unregistered browser is allowed to vote, but that's my two cents. Media Viewer is a clumsy, confusing, and ugly barrier between me and where I want to go. If you want to send people to a bigger image, redesign the WM Commons page so it has a bigger thumbnail. Get rid of useless cruft. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.140.0.55 (talk • contribs) 05:27, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
25. Disabled. On reading others' comments, in particular those of 79.253.58.136, I see this is also inconveniencing unregistered readers, so I don't think it's fair to require registration for opt-out. A clearly visible switch to toggle to the media viewer for those using their phones to read Wikipedia (who appear to be the target audience) might be best, so I was initially not going to express an opinion in this section. Yngvadottir (talk) 16:01, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
26. Disabled Given the problems other users have reported, it seems silly to force a very difficult opt-out process on unregistered users, especially to opt out of a product that is still being developed. BethNaught (talk) 16:13, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
27. Disable of course. This is a horribly inadequate software feature, which reflects a distressingly poor understanding of what various stakeholders require. I outlined my concerns here, several months before the feature was enabled: mediawikiwiki:Talk:Multimedia/About_Media_Viewer/Archive01#Towards_enabling_the_Media_Viewer_by_default -Pete (talk) 18:29, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Neutral

1. Neutral, leaning towards disabled. The Media Viewer does have some potential. For those who just want to quickly view a picture, just want to enlarge a thumbnail, and are not interested in re-using the picture, it looks quite nice, though still a bit half-baked - e.g. I dislike the way it tries to do "progressive" image loading with the blurry enlarged thumbnail. Those users may also very well form the majority. But amongst the users without an account, there are also many who want to re-use images or are otherwise interested in additional information. And for those, the Media Viewer is a hindrance, hiding important information, making the interface quite clunky. As the advantages of the Media Viewer aren't that big (after all, the "classical" image description page gives you an enlarged image as well, the Viewer just has a "streamlined" look), I think it might be a good idea to not enable it by default, but giving people a prominent option like a "Try our new Media Viewer!" button. Gestumblindi (talk) 15:12, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
2. Let's try to distinguish "bad feature", "half-baked feature", and "feature I dislike". I personally dislike lightboxes (Media Viewer is a lightbox system), so I've personally disabled Media Viewer. I also think that the feature as implemented is a little half-baked: the system feels awkward in places and tries to act like Wikipedia and Commons have semantic stuff attached to media that they don't actually have implemented in a nice way (as far as I know). All that being said, I don't think that Media Viewer is inherently a bad feature, and we should look for constructive approaches—e.g. identifying ways that Media Viewer can be improved—before jumping to back-burner the feature. {{Nihiltres|talk|edits}} 19:46, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
3. Neutral, leaning towards disabled. Like any new feature, some people will love it, some will hate it; the haters are usually those well-versed in the old interface. Perhaps a choice with a side-by-side comparison when using Wikipedia for the first time? I doubt this will "alienate" a first-time user. People love to customize applications to suit their needs. But forcing something down a user's throat after an initial evaluation is not good policy. MarkGT (talk) 01:35, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
4. Neutral, leaning towards ENABLED. As long as alt text remains a feature for the legally blind, and maps and charts can be enlarged in the next version. For the general reader, Media Viewer allows for an enlargement without disclosing file data which can be easily vandalized, potentially effecting multiple articles. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 11:30, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Discuss and comment

• Media Viewer should be disabled by default for all users. Here is why:
  1. The standard mechanisms work just fine and have done so for many years – for causal readers, power users and editors alike. Media Viewer is a solution looking for a problem.
  2. Images with white or transparent background look horrible in Media Viewer.
  3. Relevant meta data is now hidden or not clearly labeled.
  4. The full screen viewing experience is touted as being immersive, but in fact disconnects readers from the context of the article. Wikipedia is not a slideshow.
  5. Media Viewer contains useless animations and giant fonts.
  6. The original format of the image and other sizes are now multiple clicks away.
  7. Media Viewer borrows usability concepts from tablet devices and is not suitable for regular or older PC with desktop class browsers (= majority of users worldwide).
  8. Media Viewer contains errors and inconsistencies with regards to responsiveness, variations in screen size and accessibility.
  9. The results of the surveys for Media Viewer ("70% approval rating") are questionable due to flawed survey methodology.
  10. The proponents of Media Viewer seem to lean towards commercialization (e.g. Multimedia Vision 2016 p.18, feature "Share on Twitter"), which goes against the spirit of Wikipedia. The concepts seen in Media Viewer – a modern, slick design geared towards brand new devices – seem to arise from those same tendencies. -- 79.253.58.136 (talk) 20:57, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Commercialization is not against the spirit of Wikipedia, otherwise everything here would be under a NC license. Twitter is a useful tool to reach lots of people. We should embrace it (and other social media tools) rather than shun it. —Dschwen 02:57, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

We should try and stay as far away from such disgusting and damaging things as "Twitter" as is possible. This is the "free encyclopaedia". Barebones design should be preferred. RGloucester — ☎ 03:34, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

Agree. As an encyclopedia, we're here to teach, and not to share Saturday night pub photos. There is no reason to join the style bandwagon simply because Facebook and Twitter are doing it. --benlisquare_T•C•E 06:22, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

What 79.253.58.136 points out is an example of the creeping commercialization of Wikimedia. We have already had the debate about the change to the terms about paid-contributors. Now we are being asked to Twitterfy and Facebookize the projects. Next on the agenda will be "sponsorship deals" with Big Businesses for their articles, followed by a seat on the WMF board and in a few years we'll see a stock market floatation. Call me a pessimist if you want. As benlisquare says, there is no reason for Wikimedia to become like Twit/Face. Green Giant (talk) 13:10, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

Green Giant, that's implausible. The only mention of including Twitter or other "sharing" features here is a mockup in a document that expresses a vision of making it easier and more pleasant to interact with our media. In practice, the community has consistently opposed features that added external social functionality, and commercialization of Wikipedia would be next to impossible given the freely-licensed content and nonprofit legal status of the Wikimedia Foundation. {{Nihiltres|talk|edits}} 19:59, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

Nihiltres - Yes the community opposes commercialisation but that isn't going to stop people trying. The paid contributors amendment to the terms of use was supposedly to establish a minimum standard but it is actually a quiet acknowledgement that there are paid contributors working on Wikimedia projects. It is the first step in preparing us for paid contributors to becoming accepted as a norm here. As I say, call me a pessimist if you want. Green Giant (talk) 23:24, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

such disgusting and damaging things as "Twitter" Facepalm it's like I've wandered onto the letters page of the Daily Mail. — Scott • talk 11:24, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

To be more specific, we're here to spread information and knowledge. Does it matter what medium we use? (As long as it's free as in speech, etc.) Legoktm (talk) 19:59, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

• The majority of users are readers, and the majority of those will be looking for an enlarged image on clicking on it. Inasmuch as Media Viewer does that, it is a good thing. However, immediately filling the window completely is intrusive and taking liberties with user expectations. Taking the reader to the file page is not good either though. It has lots of essential information that some people will need to see, but it is confusing to an unfamiliar reader because it is not expected. The principle of least surprise should be followed here.

The behaviour I would like to see, and believe is the expected behaviour, is an enlarged image on clicking on it, but not filling the window, and without leaving the article page. The image should be free of extraneous information like copyright and author info. If the reader just wants to look at the image, all that is a distraction. A corner menu could be provided with perhaps +/- zoom, full-screen, info, and cancel. An info icon in-article on the image I believe would also be beneficial for those that do want to see the info so they can go straight to it. I also agree with Gestumblindi that the out-of-focus start-up view is horrible.

Several people have commented that this might be useful on mobile devices. As far as I can tell, Wikipedia mobile version is exactly how it was before—Media Viewer has not bee implemented on it. I therefore cannot say if it is any more useful on mobile, but I expect that it will be no more, nor no less useful when it is implemented than it is on standard Wikipedia. SpinningSpark 16:53, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

"The image should be free of extraneous information like copyright and author info." - per the terms of the Creative Commons licenses that we use, I don't think this would meet the proper attribution requirements. A non-familiar reader may click on an image, have it enlarged, and then decide to re-use the image on their own website without being able to read about who they should properly attribute. In my opinion, licensing and author information must be displayed at all costs, this is non-negotiable as long as Wikipedia purports itself to be a free-content encyclopedia ("free" as in libre, not gratis). --benlisquare_T•C•E 04:43, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

Huh?, I really don't understand your point. Users can already scrape images off a Wikipedia page without ever seeing any licensing information; that is not displayed in-article. My suggestion makes no difference to that whatsoever, so clearly it is negotiable. I am not suggesting that Wikipedia offer a download facility without first displaying the licences, but that should be on the information page (or a link from it) not available directly from the article. SpinningSpark 12:40, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

For any new feature, whether it is the Media Viewer or something else, it should not circumvent the display of information that would otherwise be displayed normally withoutthe new feature, and if the Media Viewer (or any other solution) does not display licensing information, I would be inclined to be concerned about it. We have the obligation to make file licensing clear, and if it weren't for such a solution, an end-user would end up seeing the licensing information after clicking the image for a larger version anyway (at least, that's what it would have been like on Wikipedia before any featural changes and additions, i.e. between 2003 and 2013).

What you're describing is one thing (thumbnails placed within a mainspace article), and I'm talking about another (full sized images that appear after the end-user clicks on a thumbnail). The status quo originally was that whilst thumbnails within articles weren't described in such detail (it would be rather impractical to begin with), the descriptions on file pages did fully cover licensing information for each individual image; if a new feature intends to change this status quo, full community consensus is required, in addition to consensus amongst the Wikimedia Foundation and other relevant bodies.

File licensing shouldn't be something brushed aside as something "that's there" and is mere linked to just in case someone is interested in such information; licensing information should always be there whenever possible. Ultimately, it's up to end-users whether or not they abide by the terms displayed, however from an obligation point of view we can at least say that we've placed utmost effort into making such information known if we make viewing it mandatory when the end-user clicks a thumbnail to see a larger size image; by hiding licensing information into a deep, dark corner that few people will know about, that's taking a completely different bend. There really isn't a useful purpose for "hiding" licensing information as if we want as few people seeing it as possible, because that kind of defeats the purpose of how file pages are currently designed. --benlisquare_T•C•E 14:14, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

jkb and Millhart and 79.253.58.136 should be diregarded. The first two gave zero reasoning, and the IP gave no independent reasoning. Remember WP:NOTVOTE; give actual, quality reasoning please. Dustin (talk) 19:44, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

User (talk) should be disregarded. He hasn't even contributed a comment to this RfC. :-/

Dustin V. S. would you mind explaining what you mean by non-independent reasoning? It seems independent to me. Crazycasta (talk) 20:21, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

Why should anyone give any reason for their respective comment? --Millbart (talk) 21:01, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

I was referring to the way that you all were practically "voting"; Wikipedia is not a democracy, however, and the majority will not always win. Those who provide their own reasoning shall be given consideration, whereas those who do not provide reasoning shall be given no consideration. In that way, a bunch of people cannot "vote" just for personal reasons, but they must give actual reasoning. Also, in case this was confusing you, I made different comments for the logged-in users section and the non-logged in users section. "This thing shouldn't be forced on anyone." is not an actual reason; I may consider your dislike if you at least use facts that you can prove. Dustin (talk) 23:21, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, I guess I was too vague. You said the IP gave no independent reasoning. It appears he gave 10 reasons, are you disputing their independence?— Preceding unsigned comment added by Crazycasta (talk • contribs)

This is a Request for Comment. All of the above are comments to specific questions. Whether you consider them relevant or not, doesn't affect their status as comments. A comment also doesn't have to be based in fact, it's perfectly valid to state an opinion or preference. --Millbart (talk) 13:45, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

@Crazycasta: I will be blunt here: you just made an absolutely invalid statement in saying the IP gave ten reasons. What is independent about an argument if all you say is "I agree with what all of those guys said"? Nothing. The IP gave zero reasons, and so its so-called reasoning ought to be disregarded. The IP obviously has shown its preference, but in terms of arguments, it loses out. Dustin (talk) 00:11, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

• Hi folks: Thanks for all your helpful feedback about Media Viewer in recent days. We really appreciate your candid recommendations — and survey comments confirm many of the issues you have raised on this page. The multimedia team is taking your feedback to heart, and we are sorry for any inconvenience caused by this tool. To respond quickly to the most frequent requests, we have pushed back all other projects to focus on Media Viewer for the next few weeks. We are now developing a number of new features for you, and aim to get them completed by tomorrow, so we can test them before releasing them to production. If all goes well, we expect to deploy some of them to the English Wikipedia by Thursday evening. The rest of them will be deployed the following week. Please check the new feature list and let us know what you think on this discussion page. Thanks again for your constructive suggestions. We look forward to improving Media Viewer together. Be well. Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 01:08, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

  This is a strange assertion, @Fabrice Florin (WMF): - when it seems pretty apparent that this will end with a rather strong consensus to completely disable the MV, what justifies dedicating extensive staff resources to the MV? Wouldn't it make more sense to cut your losses, disable MV, and move the entire project to the bottom of your priority list? -Pete (talk) 19:15, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Major flaws still exist

After all that's been said and done about improvements to media viewer, it still has its major flaws:

• MV doesn't allow the user to readily see an image in its max resolution by simply clicking a second time. Instead, users have to click on an icon in the lower right, and you have to hover over it to see what its for, where the little pop-up message says "More details on a Wikimedia Commons", which doesn't even hint that there is access to an image's max resolution. This will be ignored by most viewers, so I think it's safe to assume that the quality of all the hi-res images (e.g.'Today's featured picture', 'Picture of the Day', etc) will be denied to the casual users we were told are the first priority by the few individuals who have pushed MV into its default existence.
• There is no readily available way to disable the viewer, still, and in fact there is not even a hint of how to do so for the average reader and users with limited experience. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 16:12, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Contrary to the approval rating we were told about MV, that it's "a useful tool" (a "tool"?), it's rather clear that it is not wanted here at English Wikipedia. Had there been a list of features (and lack thereof) presented in the original approval survey compared to those of the standard viewing system, I think we can assume most rational adults would have said, 'don't bother'. Instead they were presented a gallery of images and told to view them with MV where the naive user was mesmerized by the slide show feature as they skipped along from one image to the next. No doubt the "approval" is based on this feature alone, simply because it was (and still is) its only feature. Disappointed. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 16:12, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

I am pretty well in total agreement with you on this. After our brief exchange on Wiki Commons I was spurred to find out how to disable MV and have now done so. That is fine for me, but what about the casual user? LynwoodF (talk) 17:10, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

LynwoodF: The ability for IPs to disable Media Viewer with one click, by pulling up the fold and clicking "Disable Media Viewer," deployed on Commons today. It'll be here in a couple of days after further testing on Commons. HTH. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 20:07, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Sure it works? Just like the disable checkbox, clicking the disable link doesn't disable MV! Bidgee (talk) 01:56, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Hey Bidgee, you do have to refresh the page after clicking disable. I hope that's not too much of a hassle :/ I just tried it out on Commons and all went well. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 17:07, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Negative, I've already refreshed, cleared cache, logged in, logged out, you name it. I still have MV and I don't want it, as someone who also has work uploaded, I don't want my license requirements ignored (which is what MV does) and in doing so, the default use of MV violates the license requirements. Bidgee (talk) 09:32, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

I replied to Gwillhickers over on MediaWiki. There was a misunderstanding. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 19:25, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Who is in charge?

• I reproduce here the post I have just made on here: I have a candid (albeit not malicious) question: who is in charge on this? Who decides if, yes, or no, the new Media Viewer becomes the new standard? I'm used at Commons and English Wikipedia to reaching decisions by consensus. Doesn't seem to be the case on this matter, as this particular decison is being taken against a strong opposition of the users!. In other words, what is the point of this very RfC if the decision was already made by someone with the power to make it? Please forgive my ignorance on these basic matters. -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 19:46, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

• Just so you know, Alvesgaspar, I did see your post over on MediaWiki and asked Fabrice to reply. I forgot to leave you a note to that extent, sorry about that. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 19:21, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

• Hello Alvesgaspar, and thanks for your question. The ultimate decision-maker on whether or not to keep Media Viewer enabled by default is Lila Tretikov, Wikimedia Foundation's Executive Director. On a day-to-day basis, I am in charge of this project as its product manager, in consultation with the multimedia team, and taking into account quantitative measures and feedback from our users. Note that we strive to take all viewpoints in consideration when making these types of feature decisions: the editor community, the readers we all serve and the developers who are most familiar with these features. All those perspectives are considered regularly, through a variety of channels, such as this one. Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 15:27, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

• This RfC clearly shows a consensus that this misfeature is unwanted and should be disabled. Your response has been to ignore the calls to disable this unfixable misfeature which solves no problems and creates many more and try to fix it instead. That is not what people here are asking for. You are ignoring community consensus every minute you leave this misfeature enabled on the English Wikipedia. It's quite infuriating, especially since I was operating under the apparently wrong assumption that Wikipedia is governed by community consensus. It's also infuriating that the justification for keeping this misfeature is that it supposedly is favored by silent majority of readers like myself who rarely if ever edit and don't create accounts. I can't speak for anyone else, but this misfeature makes my experience far worse. Does anyone seriously want some slow loading javascript monstrosity loading images in a way that makes their browser's native controls unusable? Why not just let the browser control how the image file is displayed? The opt-out for people who don't have accounts cannot come soon enough. Well, at least I have been disbused of the mistaken notion that the community has the final say.2601:9:3D00:DB:ED1D:3309:E82:81C3 (talk) 16:01, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

• This is one of the things that I still find troubling, that the media viewer was based on a less than sincere approval rating based largely on the opinions of naive and casual viewers who were not informed about all its faults and shortcomings (e.g."did you find MV 'useful'?) and that it flies in the face of consensus here at English Wikipedia. Esp since the existing viewing system has worked fine for almost all editors and other viewers for so many years. I have never heard complaints about "messy" information below the image, esp since the 2nd click gives you the image alone and allows for max'res viewing. So why did MV even come into existence in the first place? I'm inclined to think someone is making a lot of money on the development of MV, while others who oversee this project perhaps take their role too seriously, which is why this small group of individuals continue to politely ignore consensus, ala MV feedback and this RfC. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 17:50, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

• I would add this is the right time for WMF to make a break in the development of the tool, revert the changes and re-evaluate the situation; this time taking into account more seriously the expert opinion of more than a couple of respected users and media creators. I fear that ignoring the consensus of the community will bring serious damage to the project, probably more significant than the expected benefits. Alvesgaspar (talk) 18:49, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

• At this point I think the big question is, will the MV crew and those that gave them the green light respect consensus and the decision or recommendation of RfC and not make the media viewer a default viewer here at English Wikipedia, but offer it as an option and to be enabled as a default viewer if a user so decides. I believe that would be fair to everyone. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 01:37, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

• I'm reproducing here a recent comment in the MediaWiki, who addresses the present issue in a sensible way, under the tile "Lessons Unlearned":

• The latest version released to MediaWiki addresses many of the most critical concerns about the tool itself. I think the tool is nearing the point that it is a viable, shippable product. My question remains: How and when did you reach consensus to make the late-May version the universal default for all Wikis?
• Did you, as Sven Manguard strongly recommended on 23 Nov 2013, consult any substantial portion of the Commons community? Why were the warnings of Vive la Rosière (22 Nov 2013) dismissed or deferred? When Pete F warned on 16 Feb that "enabling the Media Viewer by default will [likely] be rejected by the Wikimedia community," his narrow and immediate concerns were addressed but why was the larger point, that different workflow and usage patterns made MV a dangerous change that might be (and proved to be) incredibly disruptive and unpopular?
• I don't hate the tool. I think the team did phenomenal work with the best interest of the WikiWorld at heart. I don't oppose change on first principle (far from it; I am an agile transformation specialist and change is both my life and my career). I just think that this implementation event is a massive red flag (a) that our consensus process is seriously broken, (b) that repeated, often-strident warnings from highly-respected editors were ignored and (c) that we have forgotten the lessons of history (Wikipedia Main Page Transformation, for instance) which taught us never, ever, ever to make fundamental changes to the user experience without exhaustive testing with the widest possible range of users.
• I applaud the team and their work. It is an impressive tool for a certain type of user, showcasing first-rate code quality and a clean and highly-professional interface. I am terrified, however, that this is a sign of a sea change in our attitudes toward the user community. Editorship, collaboration and trust have eroded steadily since over the past six years. Is it inappropriate for us to request expect demand that project teams "first do not harm"? </soapbox> 159.53.110.143 01:04, 19 June 2014 (UTC) (Kevin)

Comment. This has not been a happy experience for me, partly because not only do I find the MediaViewer annoying, but also because it's drawn the adverse attention of non-editors. I don't enjoy listening to complaints about something I had nothing to do with, just because I'm known to be a Wikipedia editor. However, there is a deeper problem that I've gradually become aware of as I've watched the various discussion pages over the last couple of weeks: this entire project has been astonishingly badly handled. It's clear (passim) that there were plenty of reservations about this project as soon as it became known to ordinary Wikipedians, but these seem to have been bulldozed over. Even now, the team responsible seem to prefer the idea that "things will get better with the next version", and can't seem to grasp that there is a huge difference between an encyclopedia and a multi-media slideshow. There seems to have been no attempt to build a solid consensus in favour of this project; rather, it seems to have been run by a team who only sought input from others of like mind. This is deeply worrying. RomanSpa (talk) 16:11, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

• Info -- Please see this (with no comments but irritation is raising steadily): [1] -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 20:46, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
• I'm sorry to say this is what the WMF does these days: impose massive changes that impede editing and sometimes even crash browsers, then tell us they are marvelous and we should like them. At least for this one there is an opt-out. Yngvadottir (talk) 16:04, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Very low approval rating

According to their own survey, media viewer has received a very low approval rating on English Wikipedia, where the greater majority of editors and viewers abide, with only a 29% approval rating, which means of course that 71% disapprove. See: 4. Feedback on the Media viewer talk page. Even with the new features, (an attempt to make media viewer do some of the things that we were able to do in the first place) approval has only increased to 39% recently, which means that 61% disapprove. Then we are told that 875 registered users have disabled it (in only 2+ weeks!) since media viewer was forced on everyone, with the claim that this represents 0.34% of all registered users. Is this globally, or for English Wikipedia?? Since many registered users haven't logged on in weeks, months and even years, this 'statistic' is very deceptive and misleading. Esp since the disable feature was not available at first and continues to be obscure, tucked away at the bottom of the popup screen where it will get unnoticed by the majority of viewers who just peek at images in full view occasionally.
Media viewer should only be a default viewer where there is overwhelming approval for it, and it's perfectly clear, there is overwhelming disapproval for it on English Wikipedia. Their own statistics back this up. People who use Wikipedia as an encyclopedia don't need a default slideshow. It should be an option when one clicks on an image -- not the other way around. Why they came up with this viewer in the first place still remains a mystery. To be fair to the debate, they need to take a separate survey of experienced editors and see how it fares. Meanwhile registered and unregistered users continue to leave overwhelmingly negative feed back here at this RfC/English Wikipedia and on the media viewer talk page. We can only hope that the individuals who are promoting media viewer share the same spirit of Wikipeida and abide by the same ethics as do most of their fellow editors, and will respect consensus and the decision of this RfC. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 09:29, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

• In my opinion the survey is not serious and serves one single purpose: to justify (albeit in a clumsy way) a decision that was already made. It is not serious because:

• The statistics are wrong. When we count the number of users finding the tool useful (and not the number of wikis) we get 55.7%, not 60%. I wonder if this mistake was made on purpose.
• How can WMF change the default viewing system in all wikis because 55.7% of the inquiries considered it to be useful for viewing images and learning about them? Since when being useful is a rational criterium for enforcing anything as a default?
• What kind of survey is this that gives the same weight to all responses, knowing that more than 80% of the inquiries are not regular editors and never uploaded or used an image? Did the team try to relate the yes/no answers to the experience of the users? I couldn't do it myself because the data are not available. But tried to relate the number of articles in the various wikis with the approval numbers and found a significant inverse relation: the more numerous the articles, the less the approval percentage.
• The comment of Fabrice Florin (WMF) that this represents about 0.34% of all registered users who touched the site since launch. We are sorry that this small minority of users doesn’t like the tool is not honest. We all know that most of the registered users are not active (many are socks, bythe way) and that turning the new viewer off is hardly obvious, as noted by Gwillhickers above.

• This whole process is really a shame and is making me re-evaluate my future contribution as a volunteer editor and creator. I know this is not a democracy but WMF should value more the opinion of those who really keep the project rolling: the volunteer editors. Alvesgaspar (talk) 11:08, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

Alvesgaspar, I'm blowing a whistle here. You don't get to call Fabrice dishonest (which is what your carefully worded phrase does). 0.34% of active users on the English Wikipedia have disabled Media Viewer. This is true. The English Wikipedia has, as of this writing, 126,977 accounts that made at least one edit in the past month. Of those, ~30,000 accounts made at least five edits in the past month- the "active editors." 875 into 30,000 gives a result of 0.34%. You may choose to disbelieve this, but the data is all readily available and public. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 19:28, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

• Sorry Keegan, but I have to blow another one! Neither English or Mathematics seem to be strong points of the people in charge. Let me quote again what Fabrice wrote: As of June 16, about 875 users had disabled this feature on the English Wikipedia, two weeks after launch: this represents about 0.34% of all registered users who touched the site since launch. No mention here of active or non-active users, or to any criterion defining what an active user is. Neither is it explained what site the statement refers to (the English Wikipedia?). Furthermore, 875/30,000=0.029=2.9% (not 0.34%). Forgive me if this lack of accuracy (or care) makes me even more suspicious. Especially when no serious response has yet been given to the overwhelming protests against the process, and you prefer to admonish me instead for the terms I have chosen when commenting an unfortunate phrase. To get a different perspective of what's really happening, please go trough the titles of the comments here. Revealing, is it not? Best regards, Alvesgaspar (talk) 20:28, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

• Indeed ! @Alvesgaspar:, You stole some of my thunder. See my comments to Keegan below: -- Gwillhickers (talk) 20:47, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

To clarify, the 0.34% ratio refers to the English Wikipedia and was derived by comparing the number of people who have disabled Media Viewer to the number of people who have either edited a page or changed their preferences since the date of the rollout (this is a number that is easy to produce, as opposed to most other activity metrics). In case you are curious, to date 531 active enwiki users have disabled MediaViewer (using the standard definition of at least 5 edits in the last 30 days), that's about 1.5% of all the active users. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 00:16, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

It should be emphasized that English Wikipedia has the most editors and articles, by far, over all other Wiki's combined and that many of the articles on other Wiki's were translated from English to an other given Wiki by English Wikipedia editors. If there is a 61% disapproval rating here at English Wikipedia, the core of Wikipedia altogether, this means that the greater bulk of editors disapprove. As was pointed out once before, surveyed users were given a gallery of pictures and told to try out the media viewer, so of course many naive and occasional users thought the "tool" was useful as they skipped along from one image to the next in slide show fashion. This is the basis of their "approval", which again, is less than sincere and seems to have been set up to justify a decision they had already made about media viewer. The fact that they made this a default viewer while it still had/has all of its faults, bugs and shortcomings is consistent with this idea. The individuals promoting media viewer need to step out of the box they enclosed themselves in and respect consensus, experienced editors and any decision made by this RfC. Again, this would be fair to everyone, so it's becoming more and more disappointing when they respond with smiley faces (veiled raspberries) and claims of "global" approval that are clearly less than honest. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 17:55, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

• I don't hate the Media Viewer. (Though there are various problems with it that I have mentioned elsewhere.) What bothers me is, yet again, the unexpected introduction of a major new feature in Wikipeda with no prior warning or prior opportunity for ordinary users to have any say. Every time these things happen we are told yes, there was a test program, or usability study, or whatever, but I have NO IDEA how ordinary users are supposed to know about these things. There needs to be an OBVIOUS notice somewhere, saying "We are planning a major change to .... Please click here to preview the feature and let us have your comments". 86.128.5.114 (talk) 20:02, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

• Thank you all for your comments about Media Viewer. I have responded below to some of the key concerns you raised above. Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 08:41, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

• Gwillhickers, Media Viewer was developed to provide a better viewing experience for all our users, but with a focus on readers, not just editors. To get qualitative feedback from all users, we ran a short-term survey that included responses from both readers and editors in 8 languages, starting April 10, 2014. We observed that the rate of users who find the tool useful is usually lower for the first few weeks after launch, and typically increases after users become familiar with the tool and its new features: for example, Hungarian approvals started at 42% and grew to over 60% in about a month. Similarly, daily approvals from English users started at 23% right after launch and have grown to 48% two weeks later, as shown in this survey dashboard (2nd graph). We expect these numbers to keep growing, thanks to recent improvements we made based on feedback from community members like you. That said, this survey was never intended to be a long-term metric for this project -- and we planned to end it next month, now that we have enough feedback for development purposes. Going forward, we will focus on image views and disable rates as our main metrics, because they provide a more accurate indication of the tool's actual usage. In response to your comment about the 0.34% disable rate, I would like to clarify that it is based on the cumulative number of registered users who disabled Media Viewer in their preferences (875), divided by the total users who made an edit or changed their preferences since Media Viewer was launched on the English Wikipedia (260,450); it is not based on total registered users, as you suggest, which would yield a much lower percentage. We think that metric gives us a better representation of the community's overall acceptance of this feature, particularly now that we've made it much easier for both registered and unregistered users to disable the tool with a single click, right inside Media Viewer. While we appreciate that a couple dozen users have voiced concerns on this page, we think more time is needed to determine if these responses represent the majority view of the English Wikipedia community. Rather than jump to conclusions, we recommend waiting to reach a decision until more users have had a chance to get familiar with the tool and chime in -- and letting the RfC run its course in coming weeks. Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 08:41, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

• Alvesgaspar, I am sorry that you think the purpose of this survey is to "justify a decision that was already made": on the contrary, we started the survey months ago to learn from our users, and did not deploy the tool widely until we felt confident that it was useful to a majority of users around the world. You are correct that the average across all users is 55.7% (that number had not been verified when I filed this update, which is why I used the number across surveys instead); note that this average hovered between 60% and 70% for months, until the recent launch on the English and German Wikipedias, where post-launch negative feedback brought it back down for a few weeks. At each step of the way, we have fully disclosed these numbers, in good faith and to insure maximum transparency. So it doesn't seem fair to imply that we are being dishonest, when we have consistently strived to share our findings openly from the very start of this project. I believe that I have addressed your other points in my response to Gwillhickers above. Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 08:41, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

• If the purpose of the survey isn't to justify a decision that was already made, what kind of feedback would it take to make you disable Media Viewer by default? This RfC is pretty damning. The survey is pretty damning. I know that if my customers gave the kind of feedback I got here on a change I put into my product, I'd swiftly roll it back until I figured out what was wrong. You come off as a project manager whose goal of getting the product into production has blinded you to the possibility that it may be unwanted—or at the very least, half baked. Without the threat of people taking their business elsewhere as in industry, you're not particularly motivated to make this right. Personally, I was annoyed enough by the two weeks that passed where you didn't give non-editors like me the ability to disable this that I'm still following this discussion. If there were a decent alternative I would have left, not only because of the loss of functionality, but the apparent disinterest in listening to your customers. 2601:9:3D00:DB:C153:459B:A89:392 (talk) 03:57, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

• Anonymous user 86.128.5.114: Your statement that "no prior warning or prior opportunity for ordinary users to have any say" does not seem accurate at all. Community members helped plan the Media Viewer project in over ten separate discussions since June 2013. The tool has been widely tested by over 15,000 beta users on the English Wikipedia since November 2013, as part of our Beta Features program. In the past two months, we have made over ten separate announcements inviting feedback on the Village Pump and other community hubs (announcement 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10). We have collected over 15,000 survey responses from a wide range of user groups. This seems like an extensive community engagement program to me. What else should we have done, in your view? Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 08:41, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

All those announcements depend on the unlikely chance of a Wikipedia user happening to look at some fairly arbitrary page on a particular day or within a particular timespan -- that's assuming they even know the page exists. Important Wikipedia-wide issues like this need to be announced to all users in an OBVIOUS way. 86.169.36.18 (talk) 12:02, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

And, by the way, despite being "widely tested", the product that was released contained glaring faults. I have found four or five obvious problems and design deficiencies in just the first couple of times of using. I don't know who these testers were, but they did a lousy job. 86.169.36.18 (talk) 13:01, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

• @Fabrice Florin (WMF):: Thank you for providing us the complete statistics, which confirm what many Wikipedians have been claiming (I would rather say shouting) in this thread: that the numbers do not support the claim that the new tool is preferred by a majority of users. What we can conclude from them is that a small majority of users (56%), most of them readers, find it useful. Not great, not the best or the preferred tool, just useful. And that this value drops dramatically to 28% in the wikis with most articles and users: the English and the German Wikipedias. We use to say in Portugal that the worst kind of blind is the one who doesn’t want to see. To be benign, that is precisely what seems to be happening with WMF concerning MediaViewer. It was obvious from the very beginning that a critical question failed to be asked: "should MediaViewer replace the old tool for viewing and learning from images?" Because it was not, we can only speculate on what the exact percentage of users saying "yes" should be. However, the present statistics and the choir of protests against the premature implementation leave little doubts on what the gross results would be. Significantly, Fabrice Florin is telling us that he intends to replace those statistics with the percentage of users who disable the new feature, claiming that that metric gives us a better representation of the community's overall acceptance of this feature. Says who? Someone who has demonstrated a complete ignorance on how a statistic should be calculated and interpreted? And who have used those numbers to try to fool the community? Sorry Fabrice, but the only way out now is to stop and think. And revert the MediaViewer as the default tool. Best wishes, Alvesgaspar (talk) 10:38, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Biased survey wording

The survey pre-selects by only eliciting feedback from users who remain on the image page long enough to find the small feedback link; users who are not comfortable with the image viewer will have closed the page and sought other ways to get to the Commons page, and so would be least likely to leave feedback; users who are comfortable with the image viewer because they are image focused rather than information focused, will be more inclined to find the feedback link and leave feedback. And when the feedback page is found, the question is: "Is this media viewer useful for viewing images and learning about them?" rather than: "Is this media viewer more or less useful than going direct to the Commons page?" If the survey doesn't offer an alternative, but only focuses on the current item, then the response is going to be ill-informed and limited, and will incline to what the user is looking at. It's like putting $10 on a table and asking people: "Would this £10 be useful to you?" A fairer question would be: "Which is more useful to you: £10 or the equivalent in your own currency?" Offer people appropriate alternatives, and you get more accurate feedback. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 16:21, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

I also note the survey is introduced with this wording: "We'd like your feedback on the 'Media Viewer' feature you are now using. This feature improves the way images are displayed on Wikipedia, to create a more immersive experience. What do you think about this new multimedia experience?" So, even before the user takes the survey they are planted with the assertion that the image viewer "improves" the way images are displayed rather than the more neutral "changes" the way images are displayed. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 16:44, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Less than honest approval rating

• @Keegan (WMF): -- Excuse me, but there was no mention of "active users" when the 0.34% figure was given. It was made in reference to all registered users. You can monkey with and cherry pick the statistics all you like, but none of the assertions you've attempted to make are consistent with the overwhelming negative feedback left here at this RfC and on the media viewer talk page and the fact that close to 900 editors have disabled the feature in only a couple of weeks. Again, many haven't logged on in weeks, months and years, and again, many didn't know about the disabled feature that wasn't included until recently. Since this feature is hidden, many more users will never know about it for some time, if ever. Again, your own statistics say most of English Wikipedia editors do not approve. Since the greater bulk of wikipedia editors globally belong to English Wikipedia, it's easy to figure that most of them don't want this glorified slideshow, with all its bugs and shortcomings, as their default viewer. i.e.'10% of New York's population is five times larger than 90% of Smithville's population.' 61% of English Wikipedia editors do not approve. What approval you did mange to get is based on a slideshow feature presented to naive and occasional users who were not informed about all the faults and shortcomings inherent with media viewer. This is not very honest in my book either.
  I think the question now is, do you, Fabrice, et al, have any intentions of respecting consensus at English Wikipedia and abiding by the decision/recommendations of this RfC? -- Gwillhickers (talk) 20:47, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

In case you are curious, this is the database query that was used:

select up_value, count(*) 
from user 
  left join user_properties on user_id = up_user and up_property = 'multimediaviewer-enable' 
  left join user_groups on ug_user = user_id and ug_group = 'bot' 
where ug_user is null and user_touched > '20140604000000' 
group by up_value;

This counts users who have either edited the site or changed their preferences since 2014-06-04 midnight (the rollout date, loosely). Also, this is enwiki-specific. We will publish numbers for other wikis soon. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 00:10, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

{Posted in error to talk page; I did not see that an RfC was active}: To repeat (ad nauseam), I don't hate this tool. I think the dev team did a great job. I object to the implementation, and especially to the misleading info used to support that implementation. I make no assumption that anyone is trying to mislead or deliberately cherry-picking data, but the end result is factually misleading.

Active users of Wikipedia within the EN (English) or DE (German) projects outnumber all other Wikipedians combined. Within the eight languages surveyed, EN and DE combined represent 76% of the active user base for Wikipedia and 80% of users across all MediaWiki projects. MediaViewer is an image tool and (of projects in those eight languages) EN and DE account for 89% of the Wikipedia images (88% across MediaWIki).

If we take the actual, raw numbers provided and we assume that they are truly a representative sample of all Wikipedians (Catalan and Hungarian? Seriously? Sigh. Never mind... AGF!), we have to accept one of the following conclusions:

• 39.13% of active Wikipedia users find the tool useful - as pointed out by other editors, they do not necessarily like or approve of the tool
• 37.84% of MediaWiki users find it useful
• 33.29% of users on Wikipedia sites weighted by number of images find it useful
• 33.67% of users on MediaWiki projects weighted by number of images find it useful
• 73.02% of users approve of this tool because
  • ...the two languages with largest active Wikipedia user-communities, English and German, just don't matter that much and they'll come to their senses soon enough, and
  • ...finding it useful is, of course, the same as loving something (My broken-down, cushion-split, spine destroying swivel chair here at work is useful to keep me from sitting on the floor, ergo I love it), and
  • ...only .34% dug deeply enough to disable it (Only .34% of my coworkers threw their vile chairs out the window, ergo they love them), and
  • ...we're only measuring account holders because, frankly, why would anyone else matter?

Insert : Where are you getting "73.02%" if an average of only 35% approve? -- Gwillhickers (talk) 16:16, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Again, I don't hate the tool and I don't hate the team and I don't ascribe conspiratorial or malicious motives onto Media Viewer's supporters. To be more accurate, I only ascribe those motives if they pick the fifth choice above and keep trying to defend that position. Basically, I just want Keegan's request from 24 May honoured: "Personally, I'd like to make sure that the discussion is not based on 'I don't like it and I don't think anyone else does either' but actually had solid numbers and facts on how communities feel about Media Viewer…" and make that same rule applicable to supporters and detractors alike. Can we please give each other at least that much respect? 159.53.174.145 19:54, 23 June 2014 (UTC) (Kevin) / reposted here 159.53.174.141 (talk) 13:35, 24 June 2014 (UTC) (Kevin)

Almost all of the users to see this RfC would, I suspect, be users who dislike Media Viewer, regardless of the common view, the reason being that users who like the addition (or are indifferent) would not have much motive to spend a long time looking into it. This RfC ought to be further publicized in some way, and because of the reasons I just gave, I consider Gwillhickers's view to in itself also be implementing skewed results from this RfC. Dustin (talk) 14:22, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

•  Comment: user_touched is not about "users who have either edited the site or changed their preferences", but "made a change on the site, including logins, changes to pages (any namespace), watchlistings, and preference changes". It will mostly be logins; it's ridiculous to think 300k users could make an edit or change preferences in less than one month. --Nemo 15:05, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

• @Dustin V. S.:, I don't see where I have skewed the results of this RfC, which are, btw, in plain view of any discussion that occurs here, thank you. I have maintained that the "approval" rating, such that it is, is not at all consistent with the overwhelming negative and often comprehensive feedback that occurs and continues to occur here, and on the media viewer talk page.
  
  Once again, the "approval rating" is based on a demonstration of the slide show feature where uninformed and naive viewers were given a galley of images to pan through. They were not informed about all the faults and shortcomings of this viewer, which was just shunted into our existence here as a default viewer regardless, which is yet another unsavory issue, btw. If you were to engineer and build an experimental airplane, would you want it reviewed by engineers and professional pilots with extensive and varied flying experience, or just anyone with a pilot's license who knew little about engineering and aerodynamics? If the plane was full of faults I suppose you would want the opinions of the least educated and experienced users, uh, pilots available, who would no doubt find the plane 'fun to fly', or "useful". On average, only 35% of users in any of the English Wiki's approve. Again, media viewer should be a default viewer only if there is overwhelming support for it, and clearly there is not, and (very) many users have articulated well as to why. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 16:16, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

@Nemo: yeah, I misread the documentation, thanks for correcting. Given that Media Viewer is mostly aimed at readers, I think those numbers are still relevant, but I checked the opt-out ratio for users who have edited since Media Viewer has been rolled out:

select up_value, count(*)
from user 
  left join user_properties on user_id = up_user and up_property = 'multimediaviewer-enable' 
  left join user_groups on ug_user = user_id and ug_group = 'bot' 
  left join (select user_id uid, sum(contribs) edits from user_daily_contribs where day >= '2014-06-04' group by user_id having edits > 0) x on uid = user_id
where ug_user is null and edits is not null
group by up_value;

That's about 0.75% (733 out of 98226). --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 19:02, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Insert : @Tgr (WMF): Could you keep this sort of cryptic presentation off the talk page? It fails to mesmerize me. It's absolutely meaningless to 99% of the readers. It's already been demonstrated that the numbers of users who haven't disabled are rather meaningless, given that many users haven't logged on in weeks and months while most users don't weigh in on discussions like this, which has become more tacky by the day, and I'm beginning to think that is why we're seeing computer code pop up into these discussions. The media viewer was introduced with no disable feature and now the disable feature remains hidden from view. Claims about the numbers who haven't disabled are meaningless. The question should be: how many 'informed' users have disabled media viewer? The last I checked it was close to 1000, and in only a couple of weeks. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 17:13, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Objection: @Gwillhickers, I don't agree with the tone or substance of that post. First, @Tgr and others have been challenged repeatedly on talk pages to show how they arrived at numbers. Providing the SQL is an honest and reasonable way to comply. I also think that you are allowing yourself to be diverted: How many people, informed or otherwise, have disabled Media Viewer is a distraction, nothing more. It is a measurement of the most extreme form of dislike, similar to, "Everyone who does not take a pickaxe to their computer loves Windows 8." No, just highlights a tiny minority enraged to the point of senselessness.

In actual fact, that whole discussion has nothing at all to do with whether Media Viewer should be the default for all Wikis which is the core of this RfC. How many despise it enough to turn it off (and even how many disapprove of the feature) might add weight to the idea that this was a very bad decision, but the core discussion should be, MUST be, whether this feature so enhances MediaWiki that it is essential to impose it on all Wikis, everywhere. THAT is the core purpose of this and all similar projects. We cannot allow this RfC to be a beauty contest or a popularity poll -- although something that fails both should be obviously suspect -- but a discussion of what is best for the Wikiverse. The rancor and outrage that exploded onto the Talk Pages is not irrelevant, but it's not the point. It supports a consensus to roll this back, but other factors -- process-oriented (lack of input across the user bases, especially from anons; lack of collaboration with Commons, the largest image-based project; ignoring warnings from respected contributors) and product-based (the absence of critical copyvio protections; the problems with certain image types and image sizes; usability and W3C accessibility concerns; etc.) -- outweigh popularity figures, and all point to a clear consensus that Media Viewer is not an appropriate default feature for MediaWiki in its current or predicted state.159.53.110.140 (talk) 18:09, 25 June 2014 (UTC) (Kevin)

• @159.53.110.140: Kevin, the tone is the result of an ongoing attempt to politely write-off the feedback here, on the MV talk page and their own statistics that reveal that most English and German Wikipeida editors don't approve of a slide show as a default viewer. The fact remains that the disable numbers mean little, as again, MV was introduced with no disable feature to begin with and it continues to hide this feature at the bottom of a popup menu which is also mostly hidden. As soon as it was made known how to disable some 1000 registered editors disabled it in only two weeks -- but they took this number and compared it to all users, most of whom didn't and still don't know about the disable feature in a rather transparent attempt to support a bogus conclusion that this supports their "approval" rating. So again, if we're going to heed the numbers of those who have disabled, it should be done from the perspective of how many informed users have disabled the viewer. -- RfC not a "popularity poll"? I have to disagree here. Isn't that what the MV crew have done with their approval rating, such that it was? As you seem to know by now the reasons why MV is not popular overall have been articulated by numerous users, so the "popularity", or lack thereof, actually has a basis to it. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 18:52, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

We should not be using opt-out ratios as a definite measure of support for a feature, you cannot imply that people who do not opt-out are supporters that are in favour of Media Viewer.

When Media Viewer first came about, and there was no opt-out feature within the user preferences (or at least, before I knew of the existence of any such thing), I created a rough workaround for myself in the form of a Greasemonkey userscript that circumvents Media Viewer. Since nothing on my end is broken yet, I'm too lazy to change things around even though I now know that I can disable Media Viewer in the user settings. Within your statistics, I'm probably considered a "supporter" of Media Viewer. I'm just a lazy person, but there are probably many other reasons why other people haven't opted-out yet, and you cannot infer that it's because they all support the feature. --benlisquare_T•C•E 04:04, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

I don't think anyone ever indicated that people who have not opted out would be supporters. I expect a large part of them simply does not click on images much and so doesn't care either way. That said, it does disprove the notion that the majority of editors are totally freaked out by Media Viewer, which is something that some people on this page have repeated so much that in the end they might start believing in it themselves :) So I think the opt-out ratios are helpful to give some perspective. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 07:59, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

@Tgr: I have a few issues with your post. I think that several folks here and on the talk pages have absolutely implied that low disablement rate was an indicator of approval. Several folks have taken issue with that (including me), yet people continue to defend the idea. Second, while some opponents seem firmly in the Chicken Little camp, most are not trying to say that users are totally freaked out but that the consensus to make this a default feature was flawed and that the feature itself was not ready for Prime Time. Third, I fail to understand how a lack of complete freak-out is any argument whatsoever in favour of the making Media Viewer a default. As a Reductio ad Zombium, the fact that 99.25% of the people on earth are expected to recover from a Zombie Plague is a piss-poor reason to set the virus loose in Heathrow's International Departure Lounge. Lastly, the banner for this section relates to the less-than-honest use of statistics. I think the originator was incensed by the attempt to use a 0.34% (or 0.75%) "death rate" as an indicator that the tool is reaching acceptance. The same can be said of the (at best) sloppy use of approval ratings from account-holding, project-team-chosen, Hungarian and Catalan users as an indicator of worldwide acceptance. !Vote is all well and good, but it's baffling that an objection rate exceeding 60% is seen as anything other than an clear indicator that this needs to be rethought. You have been an island of sanity in this discussion, but this post is simply weird. 159.53.110.140 (talk) 16:48, 25 June 2014 (UTC) (Kevin)

Kevin, Hungarian and Catalan were used because those were the first wikis we deployed to. We wanted to start with small wikis, obviously, and I happen to be active on the Hungarian Wikipedia and someone in the office is active on the Catalan one, so they were convenient choices; there is really nothing sinister about this. We used them (and later the increasingly larger wikis we deployed to gradually, including French, Spanish, Dutch) as predictors of global acceptance, there were mistakes made there certainly (we should have used random sampling for example - though FWIW the surveys were not limited to users with accounts nor were the respondents chosen in any way by us), but I still think that was a reasonable approach. How inaccurate those predictors were did catch us by surprise, and we did a lot of rethinking as a result (if you followed our reports you could see that we reshuffled our schedule quite a bit), although more along the lines of fixing MediaViewer then disabling it by default - not saying that's off the table, but it should be the last choice, and most of the objections (well, apart from the 35+ kind) seemed fixable (and I think we have fixed many of them by this point).

Re: use of the opt-out numbers, I don't disagree with you, it sucks as an acceptance metric, it's just that the other metrics we have suck even more. (RfC/talk page responses tend to have a very strong selection bias, and for surveys, the response rate drops off quickly, and even if the positive replies exceed the negative ones in the recent responses --which did actually happen-- it's hard to tell whether it's a genuine increase in acceptance, or people who dislike the tool are just affected more by survey fatigue. Plus you can bikeshed on the correct wording forever.) I hope we will have something more concrete by the time we make any final decision. --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 18:52, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

A different proposal

• @Fabrice Florin (WMF): -- In a section above, Fabrice Florin informs us that he intends to replace the present statistics with the percentage of users who disable the new feature, claiming that such metric gives us a better representation of the community's overall acceptance. Fine! Thus, let's do what he proposes, with a twist: disable the feature as the default viewer and count the users who turn it on. Fair enough? -- Alvesgaspar (talk) 20:59, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

• This was already done before it was turned on for everyone and 15,000 editors had opted-in already. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 22:26, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

• @Keegan and Alvesgaspar: Keegan, "already done before"? When was it done? If media viewer wasn't a default viewer when people clicked on an image how did they come by it to turn the feature on in the first place?? -- I agree with Alvesgaspar, given the overwhelming disapproval on this RfC and on the media viewer talk page, media viewer should be presented as an option for those with the need to have a slide show feature while they're reading an article in an encyclopedia.
• The professed approval rating, which is getting very tacky and questionable, is not consistent with the feedback here and on the media viewer talk page, and once again, 'approval' was based on a slide show presentation to naive viewers who were not informed of all the bugs, and shortcomings, so in essence, the approval is narrow in its scope. Trying to buttress this approval with numbers from people who disabled the viewer amounts to little, because as you have been informed several times now, many users don't log in for weeks and months, and many simple do not bother with discussions like this. The viewer was presented with no disable feature to begin with, and now many still don't know about the disable feature, which remains hidden at at the bottom of a popup menu which is mostly hidden to begin with -- so trying to interpret the disable numbers as something that amounts to 'approval' is sort of ridiculous. And once again, your own statistics say the greater majority of registered users on English and German Wikipedia do not approve of media viewer.
• Once again, we need to know if the individuals pushing media viewer into its default existence here at English Wiki have any intention of abiding by the same set of ethics the rest of us do and will respect consensus and the decision of this RfC. This will be at least the third time I have submitted this fair question. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 16:48, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

@Keegan (WMF): If a user turned the feature on, you can't conclude that he or she prefers it. All you can conclude is that they were curious about it. You can't conclude that they believe others should have it turned on by default. I turned it on, and left it on, because I wanted to be aware of what was coming, and how to mitigate the damage. Others may have turned it on out of curiosity. But most importantly, you can't draw any conclusions about how it impacts one of the most important stakeholder groups -- potential new contributors -- from the behavior of power users who seek out new features voluntarily. -Pete (talk) 18:36, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

@Peteforsyth: The proposal above is intended to do just what you said doesn't work: see how many people turn Media Viewer on and let that be the measure of success. This measure was not my idea. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 18:47, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

@Keegan (WMF):, OK -- I was taking it at face value that it was @Fabrice Florin (WMF):'s idea, as @Alvesgaspar: asserted, and assuming you could speak to Fabrice's assertion. But, it doesn't matter -- I think all suggestions that we ascribe a lot of meaning to the number of people who went out of their way to enable or disable the feature are misguided, and I'm happy to leave my comment at that. There are better ways to evaluate the effectiveness and the unintended consequences of the feature. -Pete (talk) 18:55, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Sure, and I do agree with your sentiments about the value of these discussions. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 19:01, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

In a response above, I stated (and continue to maintain) that disablement figures and even popularity polls are distractions [see Aristotle]. I get *ed off when numbers are misused (hence my post), but the core question remains thus: Should Media Viewer be the default for all Wikis? The core discussion should be, MUST be, whether this feature so enhances MediaWiki that it is essential to impose it on all Wikis, everywhere. We cannot allow this RfC to be a beauty contest or a popularity poll because those don't predict the actual impact on our customers (the users of MediaWiki; to wit, ourselves). The outcry on Talk Pages is just a symptom, and potentially provides reinforcing proof that this needs to be rethought. We need to come to agreement NOW, however, on whether imposing this feature as a default is the best thing for MediaWiki and all of the daughter projects. Clearly, I would answer that with a resounding "NO!" That does not mean I'm right, which is why consensus-building is so critical (and why I am so disturbed by the question of how an original consensus was achieved). 159.53.110.140 (talk) 18:44, 25 June 2014 (UTC) (Kevin)

^^^ Well said, Kevin. -Pete (talk) 18:48, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

@Keegan (WMF):, also, could you clarify -- were those who have selected "automatically enable new beta features" preference included in the 15,000 users you cited? If so, how many people does that include? -Pete (talk) 18:48, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

@Peteforsyth: I'll see if I can find those numbers. I do not believe that *that* many people have selected "automatically enable new beta features." Plus there's the fact that that particular checkbox didn't actually work until a couple of months ago :) Keegan (WMF) (talk) 19:01, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

@Keegan (WMF): OK, but since we've basically agreed above that these statistics aren't particularly helpful -- I'm happy to retract that request. I thought the numbers might be handy -- not worth digging them up if it takes any effort. -Pete (talk) 19:10, 25 June 2014 (UTC)